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Deborah L Cox

Wife Material

Synopsis

Wife Material blends religious abuse and sexual repression in a coming-of-age story about the modern Church of Christ denomination. The author grew up in the flagship Church of Christ college community, Harding University, in the heartland of the Protestant Restoration movement. Wife Material tells the story of Elizabeth Campbell, raised in a similar place and time. Elizabeth's parents are violinists. Her father seems gay. Their church disallows musical instruments and homosexuality. Lizzie succumbs to the twisted violence in her family and the pressure for early marriage at Waltham University, where suicides abound. Then, she escapes fundamentalism through a series of liberating sins.

Author Biography

Deborah L Cox is a trauma psychologist who lives and works in Springfield, Missouri. She is co-author of The Anger Advantage (Broadway, 2003) and writes a blog on trauma recovery, spiritual development, religious abuse, and relationships, at www.deborahlcox.com. Wife Material is her first novel.

Author Insight

The Self, The Family, and The Church

Church of Christ families, and other fundamentalist families, have the hardest time letting their children grow up. They hate all the signs of emerging adulthood, especially those that involve sexuality and disagreement. In fact, when I think about how helpful sex is to the process of differentiation (becoming a full adult, autonomous from the family-of-origin), I realize that conservative Christianity HAS to deplore premarital sex. How else are families going to keep their children "in the fold?" I see this difficulty in families who insist on home-schooling. The trouble is in letting go. The trouble is in letting our children get out there in the world and have their adventures and leave us behind, as they must.

Book Excerpt

Wife Material

“Some children can never grow up,” he said. “It’s as though their family of origin refuses to give over the deed to the psychological property. They cannot get free to live their own lives.”

That semester, I started to hate Waltham. It happened quietly, perhaps during the night. As I soaked up philosophy and family systems at TWU, I also became aware of a squatter who’d taken up residence in my body some years before: a model Church-of-Christ mother. She was like a tiny doll, wearing sensible shoes. She’d love to be spoiled by a lover, but this never happened. So instead she huddled inside me and passed judgment on my wardrobe, my hairstyles, and especially my social life. She worried I might be sexual. She disliked my friends. She loved the symphony more than she loved God, but she could never admit this, which made her confused and mean-spirited. Sometimes an unflattering stimulus, like Susan’s seat-grab, made me notice that little mother inside, and then I noticed myself noticing her.